More photography, anyone?

So, Adam is looking at a new format for my blog, hopefully to help with the formatting of the text around photos that I put in my posts.  Well, looking back at my posts, there really aren't many photos - at all.  So, I'm going to be better about posting photos.  I'm not sure how each of you prefer to view my blog, but I can tell you that it seems to be best viewed in Google Reader....of course Google would have one of the best options...I love Google!

So, until I realized just how sparsely photoed my blog is (is "photoed" really a word?  My computer's dictionary says it is), I was going to title this post "Summertime" and tell you how much I love the summer because of this beautiful fruit:



Yum!  Its so good!  I ran last night, which brings me to the thing that I hate most about Memphis - the absolutely stifling heat!  Its suffocating sometimes - I opened the door for a minute while I grabbed the trash to take out and was sweating before I left the doorway!  It was NOT a pleasant run!  However, my re-hydration/dinner of ice cold watermelon was lovely!

If I remember correctly, I also mentioned my 1st attempt at photographing fireworks in my last blogpost.  So, here it is, for your viewing pleasure.

The bridge in the photo is I-40 and we're on the little bridge going over to Mud Island.  Adam and I went out the night before to scout out a prime photo spot and it was perfect!  However, when we actually got out there on the 4th, there was a crazy wind blowing straight at us!  If you look at the light trail from the fireworks, you'll notice that they're zigzags!  It isn't noticeable much otherwise, and the ziggy lines of the light trails are fun and unique. Adam and I also played around with some light painting as well and came out with a nice ghostly image!



So, that's all for now!  Have a good night!

this is a happy math formula!

Student discount + Tax Free Holiday + Back to School +  the Apple Store =



Not to mention that we also got a new printer/scanner/copier AND an ipod touch for almost nothing after rebates (Adam wanted to pay an extra few bucks for the 16gb touch)

Have I mentioned that even though the stores become madhouses, Tax Free Holidays are AWESOME!?!

knock, knock...

Psssst...is anyone home?  Wow, its dusty in here, there's cobwebs everywhere! There's not really much around here but old cans of spam, old moldy spam at that (and its pretty pathetic when even the spammers give up on your site). Who's job is it to clean around here?

oh...thats right, me...

So, i'm not sure if anyone still checks this thing or not, but I guess I'll sit and tell some stories and see who comes out to listen...

I've had urges to blog from time to time, but I was always in the middle of something, then the thought quickly went away.  I decided last night that I am offiially diagnosing myself with wedding adversion and possibly a bit of adjustment disorder (ya know, there has to be something that the insurance will pay for).  Of course, I didn't realize this until I actually got excited about a wedding - well, technically an anniversary - related project.  I think that not only doing our wedding, but then jumping right into Heather's wedding and then a month later, Dane's wedding was a lot -- not that I regret doing even one second of work for either wedding, it was an honor to be that involved in the marriages of my close friends and family.  However, when I was done, I stepped away from blogging, (reading and writing), crafting, printing wedding photos... If it was creative, it didn't happen.  Taking photos was about the only thing that I still wanted to play with, oh, and

organizing, cleaning, purging, organizing, cleaning, purging, organizing, cleaning, purging

That was all very cathartic. Not 100% organized, mind you, but we'll be packing boxes in 6-10 months or so, and its at a level I can live with for a while at least.  I do have a very nice craft table to work on now, handmade by Adam - not carved out of a tree, he's still in med school!  But he varnished the table top (butcher block countertop from Ikea) and added legs...too bad it wasn't there in its full function when I was doing so many crafts!

I've not accomplished some things that I really should have (thank you cards - I'm horrible!), but there's been so many decisions going on, this year really has been filled, but not really going anywhere at all.  Adam is done with his boards (HALLELUJAH!) and we're trying to talk ourselves into a final, and I do mean final, choice for a specialty (OB/GYN, anyone?) and really hoping with all our might that we'll still be in Memphis for another four years.  If you would have told me two years ago that that phrase would have ever crossed my mind I would have admitted you to the Memphis Mental Health Institute right away. But really, I have the perfect job, we are at least a drivable distance from home, and we know the area and some people here.  It could be worse.  In any case, Memphis or not, we've got our apartment for 6 more months which should take us to March 1 - sixteen days before we find out where we'll be living for the next four years. Then its just a decision of looking for a house in Memphis right away or paying month to month until June when we'll move to, well, wherever.  So, we have had, and still have, a lot to think about and prepare for, but at the same time, there's not really much we can do about it.  Its an odd feeling - to have so much riding on something that you really have no influence over.  So, we'll see.

There are a few things that I want to do, but haven't.  Partly out of fear - start an etsy shop,  photograph a wedding - and partly out of lack of time or money - frame concert posters and wedding photos, make an anniversary album, try some photography projects (i did pull off a couple pretty good fireworks shots on the 4th).  I was just offered a chance to photograph a wedding, actually (thanks, Scarlett!), to which I first said no, then got up the courage to seriously consider it, and while I was waiting for more information, the person found someone she could afford.  Which is fine, weddings deserve professional photographers, not just serious hobbyists and there's a lot I'm lacking in terms of taking on someone's beautiful wedding all alone.  However, if it was me or no one, I would have done it and I know that I could get a decent amount of photos for the couple.  More than anything, it let me realize that it was something that I wanted to do and probably could have done a mostly decent job.  So, it was a good thing in all.

What made me realize I was ready for creativity again? Well, it was the anniversary album that made me notice I was coming out of this post wedding funk.  I saw a handmade album with pages for each year's anniversary to keep sort of a journal and add a couple photos each year.  I almost bought it, I liked the idea of it being handmade.  It wasn't too expensive either.

So, for all you out there who don't do the crafty thing, I'm about to tell you the biggest downfall of all time for a crafter - "That's an awesome idea -- I could make that!! But I'd add this or change that" and before you know it, that little idea becomes a beast that cost 3 times as much as the original item (handmade really does cost more to make than people usually sell it for) and 5 times longer to make than you first intended.  However, you know this on the front end, but then there's nothing that could top the one that's so perfect and now framed neatly in your mind and its that exact design or you'll have nothing at all.  So, this cool album?  After reading the reviews, I found that it had some cheesy prompts in it about things like "our favorite song this year" and such...  Also, the cover was nice, but...

So, to esty I went (because I don't know the first thing about proper book binding, which is the way it should be - remind me of that later when I tell you its something I want to learn to do).  After a few minutes, much quicker than I assumed, here is the fruit of my efforts:  http://www.etsy.com/shop.php?user_id=5744911

And now for the real work...I like the horizontal books, with the open spine, in the spring green bookcloth, with the criss crossed ribbon binding, approximately 100 pages, with the rough edges, and a photo of me and adam stitched to the front with possibly our names and wedding date printed next to the photo....I'll send to her the ribbon we used for the wedding (b&w stripe) along with some of the paper we used for our envelope liners to place on the inside of the covers. oh yeah, throw in one of those matching cases to store it in - I can't have my lovely getting dusty during the year between our anniversaries...

But it doesn't stop there...oh no!  So, when it comes to me, all perfect and beautiful, well, the pages are blank... and one has to understand which pages belong to which anniversaries, right?  So, out comes the Gocco, to which I'll print on every other page or so a number along with "anniversary" to which will correspond to each year of our marriage.  Maybe a small something or other for decoration, but that'll take some designing.

So, now....finally, its ready to be lovingly filled with memories and thoughts of the celebration of each passing year (just wait until the kids come, they each will need their own books, too.  Matching in style if at all possible). Done, right?  Weeeeellll, the Gocco really isn't made to print just once or you've wasted a lot of materials.  So, while its out, there's bound to be other uses for it!  See?!?!?  See what goes through my head?  Its a wicked, exhausting, expensive, time consuming, mind consuming process.... and it happens quick!  All those ideas came in about 5 minutes after finding that website. Wow, all of a sudden being a social worker doesn't seem so exhausting after all!

Anyway, I've rambled enough, we'll see how this blog thing goes now that I have a renewed creative energy.  I hope that there are a few people still hanging around the rafters :)  Have a lovely evening!

Holding my breath...

and hopefully I won't have to hold it all night!

I've been watching the election results since I've been home.... heck, I was up this morning at 6:30 with the TV on! I knew that the only things they were going to say was that polls were opening, but I'm so excited, nervous, hopeful... You name it, I'm probably feeling it! Adam and I were able to vote early about three weeks ago, which turned out nice for us as we were able to walk in and right up to a voting machine. It was great! People I spoke to at work who voted even last week were waiting up to 2 hours. I'm not sure what the Shelby Co. lines were like tonight, I'll have to see tomorrow, but I bet they were lengthy! I'm just gonna say two things: I hope everyone went out and voted today (or has already done so in the previous weeks) and I wish I was with my friends in Maryville at their election party! We've been speaking over the phone a few times, but its just not the same.

On another completely separate note, I hope to be able to have some photos up here soon of the wedding! We've got our proofs but not the digital copies to upload. Of course, I could sit here and tell you about my wonderful, fabulous bachelorette party, but I'm too engrossed in the TV tonight -- SORRY!!!

Another night alone?

I don't like this rotation that Adam's doing...of course, I'm sure he doesn't like it either. At least he should be home around noon tomorrow rather than having to stay until 6 like he did last time. Almost 40 hours in one continuous shift. We decided it wouldn't be that bad to work all 40 hours at once if you had the rest of the week off. Of course, you'd still have to spend most of the next day recuperating from the crazy long shift. I'm not sure what specialty Adam will end up going into, but I'm not really looking forward to tons of nights on call during his residency.

So. I think its time for some photos to be posted. I actually want to start with the week before the wedding, in which many, many, projects were completed. I'm doing this partly so I'll remember ears in the future, and partly because I don't yet have photos from the wedding. They're on their way and should be here at the beginning of the week. However, I know it will take a few days to sift through them and pull out our favorites. Alright, I'll start off with ThursdayFriday the 21/22 of August. For Thursday's report, lets just say that the reason Thursday was run into Friday in the previous sentence was because it was run into Friday in real life. I think we might have had 2 hours of sleep Thursday night... Adam had the whole week off before we came home, and he did quite a bit of helping me gocco our favors and also ran a lot of errands, etc. Still, we ALWAYS wait until the last minute to pack, so why would this trip be any different? We actually spent most of Thursday night loading general wedding crap that had spent the last 19 months (wow...long engagement) piling up in our apartment. At least it started feeling like crap when it was 3am and we were running out of room very quickly in Adam's car. This was without any of our actual luggage... So, I slept a bit around 5am and I believe Adam actually just stayed up finishing some goccoing. In two very short hours and drug myself to work on Friday. My lovely and wonderful boss let me leave work Friday around noon so that we could get going. However, we still had to pack, remember? So, I think we finally left around 5, just in time to hit rush hour in Memphis! YES!! Wonderful start to our trip! There isn't much to say about the actual trip except that we spend most of the drive sifting through our music and working on our wedding play list. We didn't even have a first dance song at that point! We made the trip as useful as it could be, because at that point, every second felt like it was needed.

The trip went well, until we hit about two hours of stopped traffic between Nashville and Knoxville. There had been a huge wreck about 11am and at 10pm that evening, they were just clearing up the wreck. We heard via Adam's phone and data plan that both sides of the interstate had been closed. Seeing as how we were in one of those middle-of-nowhere spots that didn't have an exit. So, at that point, it was ok that we didn't leave until 5....we wouldn't have gotten home much sooner than what we did and we probably would have been pretty pissed. Of course, the inevitible happened just as we ran upon the traffic: I just announced, "Let's stop at the next exit...I have to pee"...I'm not sure that those words should ever be uttered on a road trip unless the car is safely within walking distance to the next exit. As Adam also needed to pee, we contemplated all the options we had at that point. There were no empty bottles...don't laugh, I've done it before, and I'm sure that some of you have at least contemplated it....don't lie, now. The terrain around us was going to be treacherous in the dark as there was about three feet of level ground, completely lit by car headlights, before the ground dropped off sharply. I really didn't want to risk one of us breaking our leg a week before the wedding, so we sat in pain until we got through the mess. I don't really remember what time we finally got home, but we didn't get to sleep until 5am Sat morning, that I do know, because on Saturday, it was up at 8am to be in Knoxville by 10 for my final dress fitting. I'll stop here as Saturday was my wonderful, fabulous bachelorette party! Adam did his thing too that night, but it got crashed! All in good fun though. Amanda took photos of my dress fitting on Sat morning, but when she sent them, they didn't go through for some reason. (pssst...please send them again). So, instead, here's me in the dress when we found it last Christmas. The look on my face here was, "did we really just find my wedding dress in 2 hours?!?"

ok...well, wordpress doesn't seem to want to upload photos tonight.  ugh...i guess this post will have to remain photo-less for now.  Sorry!

I feel like there should be other photos to post related to this portion of the trip, but honestly, I don't remember what photos we took...lack of sleep, I suppose. You're probably lucky I remember anything at all about these early days. Adam and I broke down and paid for a flickr pro account, which is good cause that whole 10megs a month free uploads just wasn't cutting it. I (and sometimes we) take WAAAYY to many photos, and now my standard photo on my wonderful, beautiful Nikon D80 is about 8 megapixels each. I could probably get about 3 photos a month uploaded. And of course, I never remembered to actually upload the photos each month. So, when we get past uploading our honeymoon photos to Flickr, I'll look to see if there's anything fun to add photo-wise. If I get dress fitting photos, I'll come back and upload them to this post too.

Well, I might be an old lady and go to bed before midnight on a Friday night. Oh well, I don't really sleep enough as it is. I hope everyone else has a lovely evening!

time to write, but not much to say.

I was planning on writing a blog post tonight (which, I guess I am technically doing) because I'm home alone tonight (for the first time as a wife), as Adam is doing an overnight rotation at LeBonheur. Well, really its more like a 37 hour rotation, but we'll try to look on the bright side. However, I don't really have much to say. I took my shower at 9pm and just rummaged through the fridge for dinner after getting home an hour and a half late and going for a run. Its probably a good thing that I don't live alone. I might be a sad reclusive woman with 12 cats! Ok, probably not 12, but I think I'd have at least two if it weren't so expensive to own pets at our apartment.

I was hoping to have photos to begin sharing with you but we haven't received them yet. Brian said he was sending them out last week, so I think I'm gonna double check with him to see when he actually sent them to make sure our post office Adam and I really did have a lot of fun that week, even though we were exhausted and working on projects until almost 3am each night. Think of how much wouldn't have been done if we didn't have wonderful people helping us! I think I've mentioned them before, but we really did appreciate people taking the whole week off of their jobs just to help us with our wedding! What lovely friends and family Adam and I have!

Since the wedding, I haven't quite been able to shake the addiction of looking at wedding blogs. I've definitely shaved down the amount of them that I'm reading, but there are lots of blog writers who have had their weddings a month or so after our wedding, so I have to hang around to see their photos of the weddings I've read so much about over the past months of my own planning! Other reasons to keep reading wedding blogs - awesome give-aways and contests. I'm a bit sad to say that I didn't win the contest I asked many of you readers to vote for, but I was surprised to even have one of the top entries as I put it together at the last minute! Here's the result for any of you who didn't get a chance to see it:



I'm rather excited about how it turned out considering I only had a few actual photos from the wedding. I've been going through my saved photos that I used for inspiration and pulling out the ones that I liked the most. I had always intended on putting together an inspiration board before the wedding, so as to actually have some inspiration all in one location rather than in numerous bookmarked websites, torn out magazine photos, and random photos in 5 folders on my computer. However, seeing as how many photos I found had direct impact on the wedding, I thought it would be cool to see a board of photos I've saved compared to a board of photos from the actual wedding.

So, that's about all....I'm going to spend the rest of the evening watching The Daily Show and The Colbert Report - the best way to get the news of the day! - and look for some bridesmaid dresses for Heather (I haven't forgotten you, I promise!).

Oh, one more important announcement - my brother is engaged! He proposed to Brittney last Friday on her birthday by surprising her in New York! I haven't gotten all the details yet, but the most important detail is that he asked and she said yes! I'm so excited for them!! Dane told me two weeks before he proposed and I was a good girl and only told two people, both who lived out of the state and who weren't individuals they would have called themselves. I had to tell someone!

CONGRATULATIONS BRITTNEY AND DANE! WE LOVE YOU!

This morning began

...with good coffee, rain tapping on the window, and a blueberry cake doughnut. If only it was tomorrow morning, I would be at home on the couch rather than sitting in my office at work. I think I want one of these umbrellas from the Umbrella Society for days like today when I have to walk in the rain.



Oh, I think I'll have soup for lunch...